Facebook photo auto-tagging makes ID’ing friends easier

Facebook has added automatic face-tagging to its popular photo sharing galleries feature, with the system automatically gathering up individuals it believes to be the same in newly uploaded pictures, and allowing users to link them to a friend's profile in one easy step. The functionality is a progression of Facebook's existing face-identifier, which spotted different people in each frame, adding in suggestions as to whom the system believes is in each shot.

For those wary of a mass of embarrassing taggings, Facebook is allowing users to opt-out of automatic recognition through their privacy settings; however, that won't stop people from tagging you manually. The functionality will begin rolling out to US Facebook users over the next few weeks.